Ari Fouse is an oil painter based out of Los Angeles, CA. Her work plays with ambiguity and organic abstraction. She predominantly uses imagery from the sky and the sea to explore our connection to nature.
Fouse is a '21 BFA Painting graduate, with a minor in Cultural Studies, from Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn. She is also an alumna of the 2019 Pratt in Venice program, where she served as a teaching assistant for the Art History course. Her work has been exhibited in the Pratt in Venice 35th Anniversary Exhibition, in October 2019; Serving the People's Virtual BFA Show, in May 2020; Sebastopol Center for the Art's Ecstasy: The Breathtaking Beauty of Nature, in January 2021; and The Sohotel's NYC Pop Up Show, in May 2021. In August 2021, Fouse was an Artist Residency at the Dorland Mountain Arts Colony in Temecula, CA. She is now working in the Bergamot Station Arts Center, in Santa Monica, as the Assistant Director of the Lois Lambert Gallery.
Though Fouse travels the world, her native Texas is considered home.
Mother Nature — so quiet and absolute.
She is often overlooked, undetected, disregarded, neglected.
She is often overlooked, undetected, disregarded, neglected.
Her voice, so silvery and calm that it can only be heard along the cusp of a wave, the edge of a cloud, the mist before it rains.
The subtleties of these moments exist in the space between one heartbeat and the next.
I admire the geometry of nature and am captivated by the intricate patterns and forms that emerge organically. I use imagery from seascapes and skyscapes to investigate abstraction, working with quick wet-into-wet and dry brush painting techniques to achieve depth and subtlety in every stroke. Through this, I want my paintings to elicit a sense of constant motion and shifting space, and maintain a strange kind of visual indeterminacy. Abstraction enables the work to exploit this uncertainty, allowing the viewer to float through the possibilities of painting and discover new meanings in each piece.
I paint glimpses of reality that have been warped by the imagination. When I paint, my intention is not to provide answers. Instead, I simply ask viewers to look and be silent, to take a moment for introspection. Through my artwork, I hope to evoke a sense of admiration and love for the natural world, encouraging viewers to rediscover the inherent beauty and mystery that surrounds us. We all possess the ability to appreciate and connect with Nature; we need only to remember and reawaken that instinct within ourselves.
I believe that there is a secret energy that connects all Life, an underlying harmony that resonates throughout the natural world. By observing and depicting these moments in my art, I invite viewers to tap into that energy and forge a deeper connection with themselves and the Earth.
In essence, my art serves as a gentle reminder of the profound interplay between humanity and the environment. It is an invitation to pause, reflect, and rediscover the harmony that exists when we align ourselves with the vast, endless expanse of the world around us.